Fresh Sound presents Thollem McDonas and Alex Cline

Conflict, violence, hate and acrimony seem to be breaking out everywhere. The world is a mess, and what’s Thollem McDonas going to do about it?

More than two decades ago, when the Gulf War broke out, McDonas dropped out of school and became a full-time activist, intent on saving the world.

Now, he’s playing music.

“I kind of had an existential moment a few years back, which led me to stop doing activism in a very direct way,” said McDonas, who performs Sept. 6 with percussionist Alex Cline as part of Bonnie Wright’s Fresh Sound series at Bread & Salt. “I felt that I was neglecting my training and passion for music.

“Activism is an incredible sacrifice in so many ways. And so much of it is against, against, against. It’s very difficult to live your life that way. Music is pro. It’s for something. ... So my best gift to the world is to do music.”

When he dropped out of San Jose State, McDonas was a music major training for a career as a concert pianist. When he later returned to the keyboard, he took his playing in the direction of free improvisation. He’s since recorded more than 40 albums and collaborated with a who’s who of forward-thinking musicians and artists of every genre, whether Matthew Barney or Pauline Oliveros.

“I think a lot about relationships,” McDonas said. “And I’m constantly absorbing influences. I travel a lot. I participate in many different communities with many types of musicians in different cultures, so that’s always coming in and out of me.”

For his Fresh Sound performance, McDonas expects that he and Cline will not talk about what they are going to play. They’ll have an extended conversation via McDonas’ vintage Yamaha PF10 electric piano (he found on Craigslist) sounding through a set of BearFoot FX effects pedals, and Cline’s battery of percussion instruments.

“The only framework is ourselves, our abilities, the experiences that we bring to it, our instruments, the room, the acoustics of the room, the energy of the audience,” McDonas said. “All of that comes into play.”

Maybe that’s not such an unusual format, considering it’s the one many of us use daily.

“Improvisation is a practice for life, for sure,” he said. “Therefore, improvisation doesn’t begin or end; it becomes more open, or more restricted, depending on the parameters of the situation, be it musical or metamusical.

“And we are always improvising. We’re improvising right now.”

Given the openness and creative possibilities of free improvisation, it’s an approach that tends to cut through genres, even break down barriers.

“I’ve played with many different people, and now and then we don’t even share a common language with each other,” he said. “So I see this as a form of radical empathy in a sense and a way of coming to understand and communicate with people from diverse backgrounds.”